The Editorial Team |

Kenyan shilling weakens as traders meet dollar demands

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s shilling weakened slightly on Monday, with banks coming into the market to buy dollars to meet anticipated demand and square their positions.At 0750 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 91.25/35 to the dollar, compared to Friday’s close of 91.15/25 per dollar.”Guys have come in to take advantage of the lower rates to meet some of their demands,” said Martin Runo, a senior trader at Chase Bank.”Once the shilling started strengthening,…

MTN to spend R30bn on infrastructure upgrades

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MTN will invest close to R30bn this year to grow its infrastructure in the 23 countries where it operates, in an effort to attract 17.5-million more customers. The bulk of the expenditure has been set aside for SA, where it has suffered declining revenue, and Nigeria. The board had authorised investment spending of R10bn on South African cellphone and fibre-optic networks, said CE Sifiso Dabengwa on Wednesday. That is nearly double the R5.7bn spent upgrading…

JSE delivered a strong performance in 2014

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The Johanneburg Stock Exchange (JSE) delivered a strong performance in 2014, making it more difficult for competitors to take on the local stock exchange, rated the 19th largest in the world. The JSE, as it stands, continues to be a profitable organisation, and in 2014 earnings per share rose 25% to 742.4c. Group earnings before interest and tax increased 22% to R704m. An ordinary dividend of 400c per share and a special dividend of 80c…

Managing Capital Flows: Lessons from Emerging Markets for Frontier Economies

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Capital flows, and their successful management, have long been a focus of the IMF’s work and policy advice. Indeed, when John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White—the principal architects of Bretton Woods—were discussing the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, they clashed on many points, but they were surprisingly in agreement when it came to cross-border capital flows. Both men took as their starting point that, as White said, “the desirability of encouraging the flow of productive…

Nigeria Must Reduce Thirst for Oil Revenues, Says IMF

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Mobilizing more non-oil revenue is critical to Nigeria’s future growth, the International Monetary Fund concluded in a report this week on Nigeria’s economic and monetary policies. Although oil represented only 13% of gross domestic product in 2013 — services accounted for more than 50% — oil remains critical to Nigeria as a revenue and foreign-exchange source. But in order to ensure future economic stability, the country must reduce its dependence on oil revenues and strengthen…

Kenya set for faster growth, says World Bank

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NAIROBI–Low oil prices and loose monetary policy in the U.S. have bolstered Kenya’s economy, East Africa’s largest, helping it grow faster than expected last year and setting it on course for sustained growth in the years ahead, the World Bank said in a report Thursday. The risk for sub-Saharan Africa’s fifth-largest economy is that international economic conditions won’t necessarily remain so favorable, given weak demand for goods in the eurozone, still grappling with slack growth,…

Continued Reforms are Necessary Despite the Slowdown in Exploration Projects

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Investors are likely to delay the development of oil and gas projects in sub-Saharan Africa and change the scope of their early-stage projects due to the sharp decline in oil and gas prices. Mark Essex, director of Oil and Gas: KPMG in Kenya, says host countries will be disappointed by the postponement of the development of these projects as they have worked hard at making their countries attractive investment destinations for oil and gas players….

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